A Fork in the Road
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Destiny can sometimes turn on the smallest of events.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.**

**Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!**

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Arabella Sain was quite probably one of the most attractive women in Starfleet, and she wasn't used to being ignored.

On most days she could pretty well guarantee at least a few heads turning when she walked down the corridors at Headquarters, even when she wasn't wearing anything particularly stylish. When she made an effort – and on this night she'd made even more of an effort than usual – there was hardly a pair of male eyes that didn't follow her every move.

Bar one.

Bastard.

She knew he was aware of her interest in him. Or rather, her interest in breaching the defenses that everyone said were unbreachable.

It wasn't that he didn't put it around. On the contrary, he must have bedsprings made of duranium. But he made no secret of the fact that he selected his partners with care, and if he didn't care for you, you were never going to get an invite to get horizontal in his quarters.

Those who had received and accepted that kind invitation were regarded with envy. Rumor said that he did positively amazing things in the sack, and nobody contradicted it. On the contrary, mention of it tended to be greeted with coy smiles; the sort that said _we could tell you, but you'd never believe it._

She'd known he was going to be here, of course. Now that the course was over, all the graduates were letting their hair down. Getting the highest mark in the course hadn't been greeted with anything more than an offhand nod, but he had to feel _something_. And this was the sort of place he'd probably relax those rigid rules about alcohol.

Tonight, she was going to make her move.

So she'd dressed with particular care, taking her cue from the women he'd been seen to associate with. He didn't go for blatantly obvious sexuality. Overflowing décolletage got nothing more from him than a sardonic glance.

Her dress was the perfect combination of elegance and sensuality. The dark blue silk clung in some places, draped in others. The small sapphire pendant on a thread-fine chain around her neck emphasized its length and curve. It was infinitely more sophisticated than the glitzy rows of sparkling stones that others affected. This time he just _had_ to notice.

Well, he'd looked. Once. As she entered the room, just as he did every time anyone came in, with that inbuilt wariness that training had not so much created as honed. She wanted to think that the measuring gaze lingered just a fraction longer, but it certainly hadn't acknowledged her the way that of virtually every other man in the room had done. Older executives' wives had frowned or sighed; girlfriends or fiancées had prodded suddenly inattentive partners; unattached males had gravitated towards her like comets towards a newborn sun; single females had looked and shrugged. It was just Arabella being Arabella.

For most of the evening she socialized, flirted, and acted like the hostess of the party. Older men turned frisky in her presence, encouraged by her demure playfulness. Pathetic. She kept the smile pinned on her face, as much a part of her disguise as the immaculate cosmetics, and all the time she was aware of him, a dark presence off to one side, saying little, eating virtually nothing and drinking less. Now and again she thought his gaze brushed across her briefly, but whenever she glanced in his direction he was always watching someone else.

When the music started she thought he might make a move. And he did, but he was leading that gauche little Deborah Devereux on to the floor. In between being charming to her own partner, whose name she didn't know and had no interest in, Arabella kept an eye on them. He didn't talk much, but Deborah was blushing. _For God's sake, why her? She's got as much figure as a wooden clothes-pin and she's about as entertaining as a stuffed toy. _She couldn't see him adding Devereux to the notches on his Starfleet bunk. It was odds on around the corridors that she was still a virgin, for one thing – hardly likely material for a man of his preferences. Maybe it was because of her being English too. Right on the first day of the course, when they'd been reading names off the dorm boards, his soft voice had corrected somebody's phonetic mangling of the pronunciation. It was the first time anyone had heard him speak, and a little startled silence had fallen. She remembered that now.

But it couldn't be denied that they made a pretty attractive couple. She was a better dancer than you'd have given her credit for, and he was always graceful. Arabella snatched another glance a few minutes later, as the music came to an end. He didn't release his partner immediately, but stood looking down at her with an expression on his face that was – well, unexpectedly gentle.

For some reason this was intensely irksome.

She left her partner and wandered in that direction, picking up a glass of champagne as she went.

"I don't believe I congratulated you yet on your results – Ensign Reed," she said sweetly, ignoring Devereux as though she was part of the wallpaper. "You must have spent a surprising amount of your free time studying."

"That's the way to succeed in life, Ensign Sain," he replied, his voice perfectly level. Close to, his eyes were as gray as diamonds in half-light, and as hard. "'Preparation is one of the vital steps to perfection', after all."

Damn. With that low English voice he even sounded like he was talking dirty when he was quoting Professor MacRae, who was so boring half the class fell asleep during his lectures.

"I believe that's your approach to everything. Or so I hear." She lifted the champagne glass to her lips and looked at him over the rim of it.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear. But in this case, it's perfectly true. I've always been a believer in ... as much preparation as possible." His gaze dropped her like a cat dropping a dead mouse and returned to Deborah. "Can you bear me treading on your toes again?"

Color washed up in her face, lending it an unexpected prettiness. Her hitherto nervous look dissolved into a sudden smile that was breathtaking. "You didn't tread on them once."

"Oops. I'll try not to tread on them for this one either, then." And he led her back on to the dance floor, where once again they became absorbed in the music and in each other.

Arabella stood perfectly still, watching them.

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"He's not getting away with it."

She told the mirror that much later that night, after she emerged from the shower with the muscular and not-overly-intelligent MACO who'd at least had the intelligence to recognize an offer he shouldn't turn down. Not that he'd wanted to anyway.

"Who's not gettin' away with what, sweetheart?" He trailed kisses down her wet shoulder, played with her hair.

"Someone who insulted me."

"I can't believe anyone would dare."

"He's a British asshole." She sighed and leaned back into his caresses. "He thinks he's invincible."

"You want me to prove different?"

"Yes."

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**All reviews and comments received with gratitude!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.**

**Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!**

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"Goodnight, Malcolm."

He walks away with her soft voice in his ears. He's used the excuse of needing an early night before, though mostly to prolong the suspense; a woman places more value on what she's getting if she has to wait for it a little. Usually by this time the kill is a foregone conclusion. He only has to choose his moment.

But with Deborah?

He doesn't know. In the complexity of his mind he tries to unravel his motives. The moon keeps him company as he walks almost silently through the maze of buildings, thinking.

It isn't that he doesn't want her. Perhaps the problem is that he actually likes her.

If his suspicions are correct, then taking things further will turn him into something he's not ready to be – someone she cares about.

The thought unsettles him. He's used to women who take what he has to offer and afford him a night's pleasure in return. Some of them have wanted more and he hasn't cared when their cravings shattered on the rock of his coldness. With Deborah, however...

A warning instinct that he's learned to trust flags up the danger that Deborah might be different. Her smile touches something in him that froze long ago, and perhaps if he's not careful it could thaw back into the unbearable pain. Nevertheless the touch of warmth attracts him half against his will. All too aware of the razor sharp edges of the icy thing he is, he knows far better than she does what she's risking when she smiles in his direction; but still, she does smile, and almost without realizing it he's treading the steps of the dance he knows so well and discovering late – almost too late – that he's dancing on the edge of a precipice.

And it isn't the only question that has him wondering on this airless August night. He had a short but intriguing encounter at the party with a man he's never met before, but who seemed to know a great many things about him. A man who mentioned an opening for someone with his skills, his aptitudes, his instinctive wariness; who left no contact details, but promised to be in touch again 'soon', when he's had time to consider. His grades have given him many options for his next career move, but something about this has drawn his interest. He's not unaware that this may well have been quite deliberately done, but he's not less interested for that – if anything, it makes it more imperative that it be investigated.

He is so preoccupied with these two issues that, for the first and last time in his life, he forgets a basic tenet of security.

_Never_ assume your home territory is safe.

In the darkness he feels rather than sees the rush. He is as quick as a cat, but he is outnumbered. Bone splinters, but there are other shadows waiting who know his calibre.

Their caution is a compliment, of sorts.

Tape across his mouth silences him. Horror envelops him as completely as the darkness of the alley they drag him into.

The blows are scientifically placed. They aren't aimed at any vital organs; he soon realizes that. Though his capacity to father offspring evidently doesn't figure on their list as an ability he needs to be left with.

At first he struggles, resists, fights with all his strength against the pain, the shame, the helplessness. Soon, however, nausea and exhaustion help him to the realization that he's wasting his efforts. Against every one of his instincts, he has to let himself go lax, accept the blows as though he's fainted, fall deadweight in the hands that hold him.

He manages it somehow. They aren't expecting him to succumb so quickly. Their surprise buys him half a second and a very limited use of one arm that slips through someone's grasp.

He can't afford pride. The tape feels like it's torn the skin off his mouth, but it lets him release all the breath that hasn't been battered out of his lungs. As the hand is jerked back into captivity the thumb catches the edge of a jacket and pulls it just wide enough to reveal a glimpse of a carefully hidden badge. The shark on it grins at his futile cry for help. Who would be abroad at this hour?

_"Hey-!"_

They want no questions asked. They drop him like so much rubbish on the paving stones, and run.

Someone's arrival in a rush. Someone too impulsive to weigh up the odds, a piece of foolhardy courage which could have cost him dearly. A dark shape bending over him. The smear of light that had shown him the badge now glints on unruly fair hair.

"Buddy, are you okay?"

_Yes, I'm absolutely fine. I'm just lying here with my ribs broken because I like the bloody view._ He bites back the ungrateful sarcasm, and concentrates instead on keeping his voice level despite the pain. "I'm afraid I've – taken a bit of a hammering. You've scared them off. Thank you."

The newcomer wastes no time. The emergency services are called. While they wait, the stranger tries to make him comfortable, taking off his own jacket and laying it over him, talking to him soothingly all the time. His hands are calloused and competent, though he's not so old or so mature that his voice with its Deep South accent doesn't quiver a little with shock at the violence that has been done to another human being. He introduces himself: "Charles Tucker, but my friends call me Trip." There's an invitation there, held out with the profligate generosity of a man who trusts easily, but the man who hears it has learned that trust is an exceedingly rare and dangerous commodity and should never be extended without the utmost care. 'Charles' it is, therefore. And it transpires that 'Charles' is an engineer with his heart set on a career among the stars. His enthusiasm spills out of him; maybe he's talking to distract the casualty until help can arrive, but it's transparently genuine. He's stayed late at the 602 Club, dallying with some affectionate lady there – wherefore his fortuitous arrival at this godless hour.

The lights and sirens of the ambulance arriving interrupt the conversation, though given the difficulty that one of them has in talking it's really been more of a monologue.

Charles accompanies him to the hospital, and assures him he'll take care of notifying anyone he needs to have informed of his whereabouts. By this time Malcolm has reached the conclusion that the other man has the heart of an elephant and the survival instincts of a lemming.

Finally someone arrives with a hypospray of sedative, and his troubles take their leave. Temporarily, at least.

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His stay in hospital is tiresome, but necessary; fortunately, it isn't long. Unexpectedly, he has visitors. Deborah is the first. It's not so astonishing, really, though the episode has straightened out his thinking and he knows with a sadness that surprises him that he will not, after all, be taking that further step. He'd rather she didn't join the long list of those who'd lived to loathe him. She kisses his forehead and cries over his bruises, and he knows that she already cares too much.

The second visitor is the man from the party. He introduces himself as Harris, though that probably isn't his real name. He appears to have information regarding the incident in the alley, though not in a form that would be of use to the authorities.

He doesn't say as much, but the implications are delicately plain. _My department looks after its own._ Retribution is one of the attractions that are subtly deployed for the patient's inspection. There are others, but right now that's definitely one of the most appealing.

After he's gone, Malcolm lies immobile on the bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling. He made the doctors leave the cut on his upper lip, and it'll leave a scar. Small, but every time he looks in the mirror he'll see it and remember the alley and the shark badge of the MACOs. He'll remember the beating he took because the darkness hadn't yet become his friend; as it will be from now on, because his choices were made for him last night and Harris knows that without either of them having to say a word. He won't go on being afraid of the darkness, because he'll be a creature of it.

Once upon a time he'd dreamed that things would be very different, but he's become a realist before anything else.

His third visitor puzzles him, because he can't account for his being there. His Good Samaritan of the alley, unaccountably concerned for the welfare of a stranger. He's in uniform now, with the maroon piping on his shoulders and a lieutenant's pips beside his collar; can't linger, because 'Jon' is waiting in the flitter, but just wanted to check up on him. There's a sensation of reaching out that Malcolm acknowledges with a mixture of bewilderment and regret – he doesn't understand in the least why this good-natured American should want to be his friend, if indeed he does. But even if it had ever been possible, it is no longer. He's never possessed the art of making friends, and from now on such a thing will be only a liability. Still, he feels again that sense of sadness as he repels the kindly advances with the chilly British formality he knows so well how to wield; he loves dogs, and this is like kicking a friendly puppy.

The blue eyes are very expressive. They convey startled hurt before they veil over. Doubtless one of the many maledictions coined down the years to cover the British passes through his mind. His parting words make it plain that he won't be passing this way again, and Malcolm watches him turn and leave and tries not to think that this too could have been different if it had been a different world. Doubtless 'Jon' will be the recipient of some scornful and dismissive words on a wasted errand to an ingrate. Friend? Lover? Either way, the faceless Jon is a lucky man.

The door hisses shut, and he is alone again. For one dreadful moment the realisation that he will be alone for the rest of his life rolls over him and crushes him into the bed, but he forces himself to lie still, breathing slowly and steadily, staring straight ahead at the future he has chosen. _What can't be cured must be endured._ That's been his mantra for as long as he can remember. It doesn't fail him now. His life has taught him endurance and he's learned it well.

He sits motionless behind his unbroken fortress walls, and hardly notices the pain as another layer of ice seals itself around his heart.

Outside in the corridor, the footsteps of the man who wanted to be his friend fade into the distance and are gone.

**The End.**

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**All reviews and comments received with gratitude!**


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